>How did the error pass QA? It would seem like something d be spotted...
I don't think the devs were happy with the final product either. They released Metal Slug X soon after which is just a tweaked version of MS2 with much less slowdown, more enemies, more weapons and some small changes to the art and music.
It's also a bit more difficult while being more "fair" overall IMO.
The article says that X is more than a tweaked version in when it comes to the engine/slowdown - "the reason MSX is so much faster is because they’d actually re-written the engine rather than just fixing MS2"
While I'm sure there was some engine work since the desert and train levels are actually playable now, much of the art is just palette swapped, the level terrain is mostly identical and there's still a lot of slowdown overall (at least for the Neo Geo version).
> How did the error pass QA? It would seem like something d be spotted
Tight schedule, limited budget. This wasn't a huge-production project like today's AAA titles.
Obviously they noticed it was framedropping, maybe they figured they couldn't do anything about that in the time they had, and missed that they were actually dropping one frame too many.
